Mr. President, I am honoured
to have been invited by you to address this Assembly this afternoon.
I am particularly happy that this should take place under your Presidency,
for your election not only gave pleasure to all your friends in
the British House of Commons, but it held out hopes which have been
abundantly realised that, in you, Britain was contributing a great
European to the service of Europe for this period. Equally, we knew
that the voice of Europe would never be silent in the British House
of Commons.

My mind goes back over seven years to the last time when one
of our colleagues presided with such distinction over this Assembly,
my very close friend – and a friend of so many here – the late John
Edwards, whose tragic and untimely death took place here in Strasbourg.
In all those years, John lived close to me, as he was close to me.
We used to go to the House each morning in my car and return together,
usually late at night. And well I remember how often he spoke of
the great tides sweeping to and fro here in this Assembly, and of
his great vision of the Europe that was to be, the Europe in which
we all know he would have played a great and historic role.

This Assembly, and all the other manifold activities which
have come to fruition under the Council of Europe, represent unity
in diversity: a unity of purpose and vision made the more real by
the diversity from which it is being created. For the unity of Europe,
so far from being in conflict with the fact of diversity, is indeed
enriched by the diverse contributions which so many countries –
with their widely differing gifts of geography, of history and of
culture – can contribute.

“Who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

We who are citizens of this great continent have the right
to take pride in the part we have played in history, not least in
the creation of great – and themselves diverse – nations beyond
the seas. And if, in a rapidly shrinking world, the great challenge
we now face is that of coming to terms with the thrusting urgency
of new, populous, hungry nations, on a basis no longer so much of
what we can take from them

as of what we can give to them, there is nothing inward-looking
or complacent in drawing on the richness of our own past here in
Europe. And we can put forth, in all the massive strength of which
we are collectively capable, the effort we should make, and must
make, on behalf of the new nations in Asia and Africa and Latin America
– an effort that will call for really massive strength – we can
do this only if our Europe itself is united and strong.

Nor again, can those nations here represented, with all the
unexampled contribution we have it in our power to make to the achievement
of peace, make that contribution unless we can achieve a greater
unity of purpose. A unity of purpose which must be directed not
only to the solution of our own problems in Europe – of that wider Europe
whose true boundaries transcend the man-made divisions deepened
by two world wars – but which year by year constitute the pattern
of international discussion at the United Nations.

It has been wisely said that no statesman can hope to approach
the problems, whether of his own country or of international affairs,
unless he is endowed with a rich even an imaginative sense of history.
Certainly, no one can accept the privilege which has been granted
to me here today without a deep and, at the same time, moving realisation
of the history of the thousands of strands and threads of gold and
silk and homespun wool, which have combined to weave this rich European
tapestry of ours.

We live still in an age of nation States. Against a backcloth
of history, the concept of nationhood for each one of us is unbelievably
recent: a racial concept for any one of our peoples is nonexistent,
or the product of a psychopath’s nightmare.

A week ago a distinguished anthropologist announced discoveries
suggesting that man – if not quite as we know him now – is 20 million
years old. Two thousand years ago – the last one ten thousandth
of that time, less than half a second of man’s hour of history –
the British people were already indistinguishably created from the
colonisation of a score of areas represented here today. A thousand
years ago, the name England itself reflected the community of invaders
and settlers – the Angles and the Saxons commingling with the Danes
and our older Celts, with their diversified European origin. And
if democracy as we have come to know it in Britain began to stir
in those village communities on the basis of the forms which had
been brought to us by the seamen farmers of Europe, the institutions
which gave form and substance to that democracy were created through
the superimposition of Norman French laws and forms of law, brought
to England 900 years ago by men from France, themselves of Scandinavian
origin.

So, too, the great democracies across the Atlantic were themselves
created by European colonists and settlers, by the emigration of
those who, in earlier years, fled from Europe in search of the religious
freedom they held dear, and, in later years, by those who turned
their backs on tyranny or starvation – the United States itself
is a creation based on European diversity – its laws, its culture,
its civilisation, breathing a hundred forms of European inspiration.
Indeed, at a recent Anglo-American function in memory of Sir Winston
Churchill, I found myself reminding our American friends that not
only was their system of government built on British foundations,
using ideas from France and other parts of Europe – but their Constitution
itself is based on a tripartite division of authority, derived from
Montesquieu’s Séparation des Pouvoirs, thus creating a constitutional
system which every American schoolboy is taught to revere – and
which when they grow up they continue to revere with varying degrees
of enthusiasm – but, also, that it was a system which, as a matter
of history, must be regarded as based on a Frenchman’s misreading
of British constitutional practice in the 18th century.

I referred just now to Sir Winston Churchill, than whom there
has never been a more patriotic Englishman. Yet it was he who, in
the days of darkest hunger in 1940, had the vision to propose ta
beleaguered France an indestructible Act of Union between our two
countries. It was the same vision which impelled him and so many of
all parties from Britain and from every other country represented
here today to propose the initiatives which led to the Council of
Europe; and to me the historical significance of the Council of
Europe, and the wider European movement of which it is one manifestation,
is this. Feet planted firmly in the realities created by the last
century and a half of European history, heart and head occupied
with the realities and needs of this present century in which we
live, eyes fixed unwaveringly on the coming century in which our
children and grandchildren will live – this is the posture in which
we are working.

For if the 19th century, the age of nationalism, was illuminated
by the heroism which created the great nation States, the 20th century,
equally, will go down to history as the age in which men had the
vision to create, out of those nation States, out of the destruction
of two world wars arising from the conflicts of European nationalism,
a new unity based on cool heads and warm hearts. And a unity the
greater and more real because it builds on – and does not reject
– the diversity of the nation States whose national traits and characteristics will
become stronger and more fruitful by being merged in a wider, outward-looking
unity.

Just as, in a wider sense, if the last century and a half
was the age of empire when French and Dutch, Portuguese and British,
and others, who had gone from the long crenellated coastline of
our maritime Europe – were followed by traders, soldiers, administrators,
teachers and missionaries – this age of empire has now yielded place
to a new age and to a new concept. Not the “ retreat from imperialism
”, not “decolonisation” – these phrases accentuate the negative
in what is being achieved. Rather must we see it as an age of enfranchisement,
of development, of co-operation, as one colonial Power after another
has handed over responsibility, the responsibility of government,
to their once subject peoples and, while surrendering power, has
forged a new association which, in the greater part of the newly
enfranchised world, has invoked a quality of friendship which the
colonising nation could never know.

So it is in the Commonwealth, a Commonwealth of equals. So
it is in the continuing association of France and our other neighbours
with those whom they once ruled. So it is in the work of this Council,
of the European Economic Community, and of OECD: that through international
co-operation and bilateral effort and sacrifice we in Europe have
extroverted our economy and our industry to meet the needs of a
developing world.

But, as I have said, this effort can never achieve its full
purpose, whether in terms of development or of peace, unless we
learn the way to build up, through a more real unity, our common
economy and our mutual political strength. For economic strength
and political unity must develop together. And, just as we are all
dedicated to the proposition that economic strength should be developed
in an outward looking sense, so, equally, every one of us is resolved
that the political objective is not only to end the series of conflicts
which have torn Europe apart twice in this century, hut to create
first a dialogue and then a real and living peace with our neighbours
to the East, and, even more widely, to strengthen the voice of each
one of us in the councils of the world.

It was in this spirit that the European Economic Community
was created. My own party, in a statement endorsed by an overwhelming
majority at our party conference in 1962 said:

“The Labour Party regards the European Community as a great
and imaginative conception. It believes that the coming together
of the six nations which have in the past so often been torn by
war and economic rivalry is, in the context of Western Europe, a
step of great significance.”

For where there has been controversy in Britain, this has
not been on the historic achievement which the creation of this
Community represents, nor on the hopes it holds out for a Europe
free from threat of war – the controversy has been on the question
whether and on what terms it would be right for Britain herself
to seek entry to this Community.

Ten weeks ago I announced in Parliament that the British Government
had conducted a deep and searching review of the whole problem of
Britain’s relations with EEC, including our membership of EFTA and
of the Commonwealth. Every aspect of the Treaty of Rome itself,
of decisions taken subsequent to the signature of the Treaty, and
all the implications and consequences which might be expected to
flow from British entry, had been examined in depth. In the light
of this review, I said that the Government had decided that a new
high-level approach must now be made to see whether the conditions
existed – or did not exist – for fruitful negotiations, and the
basis on which such negotiations could take place.

I said to the House of Commons:

“I want the House, the country and our friends abroad to know
that the Government are approaching the discussions I have foreshadowed
with the clear intention and determination to enter the European
Economic Community if, as we hope, our essential British and Commonwealth
interests can be safeguarded. We mean business.”

That, Mr. President, is our position. We mean business.

And I am going to say why we mean business. We mean business
because we believe that British entry and the involvement of other
EFTA countries, whether by entry or association, will of themselves
contribute massively to the economic unity and strength of Europe.
What is today a market of about 180 million becomes a potential
market of nearly 280 million, the biggest among all the industrially
advanced countries, west or east. Not only consumers, but producers,
too. The adherence of most or all of the EFTA countries would bring
to the existing Communities not only a wider market, but also the
skill, the expertise, the science and technology of millions of
workers and thousands upon thousands trained in the highest refinements
of modern technology.

We mean business, again, because the interests of Europe as
a whole – wider Europe no less than those of Western, Northern and
Southern Europe – will be served, as equally our own separate interests
will be served, by creating a greater and more powerful economic
community. I have always made it clear that, in my view, the concept
of a powerful Atlantic partnership can be realised only when Europe
is able to put forth her full economic strength so that we can,
in industrial affairs, speak from strength to our Atlantic partners.
Let no one here doubt Britain’s loyalty to NATO and the Atlantic
Alliance. But I have also always said that that loyalty never means
subservience. Still less must it mean an industrial helotry under
which we in Europe produce only the conventional apparatus of a
modern economy, while becoming increasingly dependent on American
business for the sophisticated apparatus which will call the industrial
tune in the ’70s and ’80s.

We mean business in a political sense, because over the next
year, the next ten years, the next twenty years, the unity of Europe
is going to be forged and geography, history, interest and sentiment
alike demand that we play our part in forging it – and working it.

There may be those who believe that to widen the Community
will be to weaken it, or to dilute its existing sense of purpose
and its institutions. Change there will be, as there has been throughout
these ten years. For he who rejects change is the architect of decay.
The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
We within Europe will play our full part in generating change, whatever
that may mean for vested interests or for the protectionist- minded,
whether in Britain or elsewhere. It will be not on stagnation, but
on movement, continual movement, that the momentum created in post
war Europe can continue, and, indeed, accelerate. Widening, therefore,
based on change will mean not weakening but strengthening.

I have said that Britain will gain if the right conditions
can be established for a decisive and urgent move forward. But,
equally, let no one here underestimate what Britain can also contribute.
We shall be bringing, not only to the council chamber but to the
power house of Europe, a new, more determined Britain, a Britain
whose answer to the sick gibes of some commentators is being given
not in words, but in deeds.

I give you the facts. In 1964, when Britain’s new Government
took over responsibility, we were running a deficit at an annual
rate of about £ 800 million. In 1965, this was cut below £ 320 million.
Last year, despite the momentary setback of the strike in our shipping
industry, which the Government stood up to, despite the wave of
monetary panic in the markets of the world, the deficit was cut
again. This year, it will be eliminated and we intend to move steadily
into surplus.

It has been achieved because we have had a Government not
afraid to take unpopular decisions, and a people ready to accept
those decisions; because we have given national priority to exports
and our business have accepted that priority; because we have put
investment and modernisation ahead of easy living, and our people know
it is right; because we are changing the face and structure of British
industry, attacking restrictive practices on both sides of industry
as industry itself – jolted into a new sense of cost consciousness
and cost of effectiveness – cuts out the dead wood which in too
many of our board rooms has been the consequence of an inheritance
from an effete industrial dynasticism, and in our labour practices
an inheritance from a past generation of underemployment.

I have referred to the balance of payments. I do not apologise
for giving one more set of figures – the balance of trade on which
all else depends. Over the last half century Britain has only rarely
balanced her trade. We have relied on the gains from our invisible
exports – another area of expertise where we can contribute to the greater
welfare of Europe. But on direct trade, in 1964 our monthly export/import
deficit was £ 45 million. In 1965, that monthly deficit was cut
to £ 23 million. In 1966, it was halved again to £ 12 million and
in the last three months of 1966, as the measures we took last year
bit more deeply into the problem, we had a surplus more than twice
as big as in any previous quarter since the war, indeed probably
more than twice as big as in the lifetime of most of us.

Besides an economy growing in strength, we bring all that
British technology has to offer. Let us not be defeatist about Europe’s
technological contribution compared with that of the United States.
Each European country can speak for itself. But what would the American
industrial economy look like today without jet aircraft, directly based
on a British invention, freely made available as part of our joint
war effort; antibiotics – similarly made over; the electronic revolution
based on the British development of radar; indeed, the entire nuclear superstructure
which could never have been created except on the basic research
of Rutherford and other British scientists?

All right, this is blowing trumpets, and why not? What’s wrong
with too many of us in Europe is that we seem to have lost that
art; that our salesmanship and public relations have not kept pace
with our technological achievements. But equally, in referring to
American dependence on the European discoveries of a generation ago,
there is no question of living in the past. I am taking American
industry today in relation to the European achievements of yesterday
which have made it possible. And what we have to see is that the
European industry of tomorrow does not become dependent on an outside
technology, with all that can mean in terms of industrial power
and independence.

I give one example only. In the past two years, the British
Government – as a matter of policy – have saved the British computer
industry and safeguarded its independence. For computer technology
holds the key to the future. This approach – and not only for computers
– must now be applied on a European scale.

These, Mr. President, are some of the reasons why we mean
business.

Now, at the outset of the tour which the Foreign Secretary
and I are making of the capital cities of the Six, we are fairly
asked: where do we stand on the Treaty of Rome? In my announcement
of the Government’s intention to Parliament on November 10th, I
said that we would be prepared to accept the Treaty of Rome subject
to the necessary adjustments consequent upon accession of a new
Member, and provided that we received satisfaction on the points
about which we see difficulty.

What I had in mind in saying this was that the Treaty itself
provides, in Article 237, that the conditions of admission and the
adjustments to the Treaty necessitated by it should be the subject
of an agreement between the existing member States and the new applicant.
Clearly, there have got to be – and this is envisaged – adjustments
to the Treaty to cover such questions as British membership of the
institutions, with appropriate representation; provision for an
appropriate number of British votes in the Council of Ministers;
and no doubt other changes such as this which will be necessary
in the percentage contributions to the Community budget and funds.

We shall be discussing the various difficulties which we should
see in accepting without reservation a number of the policies which
have been worked out by the Community over the years. It is clear,
also, that such questions as the timetable on which we should be
applying various provisions of the Treaty, is, of course, different
from that laid down in the Treaty because of the lapse of time since
the Treaty was signed.

But provided that the problems that we see can be dealt with
satisfactorily, either through adaptations of the arrangements made
under the Treaty, or in any other acceptable manner, then the Treaty
itself would not be an obstacle; and those rules to which we set
our name and seal – those rules we will observe.

Of course, the Treaty of Rome has difficulties for us, as
it had difficulties for every one of the original signatories. But
we have this advantage, that in the ten years since the Treaty was
signed it has been possible for us to study not only the text, but
also the way in which it is operating, what we might call the common
law as well as the statute law, and we are encouraged by the results
of our study.

It is still too early in our tour to draw conclusions from
our discussions. At the end of the day, it will be for the British
Government to decide, in the light of the best appreciation we can
make of the problems that will lie ahead, and the hopes of overcoming
them, whether it will be right for us to enter into definitive negociations
for entry. If this is our decision, I hope the negotiations will
be on a minimum number of broad issues and not on an infinity of
details. Many of the details, many of the consequential decisions
– important though they be – can best be settled on a continuing
basis from within the Community. Nor can the ultimate decision be
based on a computerised analysis of finely balanced economic considerations.
Wordsworth once wrote:

“High heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or
more”.

I am not suggesting that Britain’s representatives in any
future negotiations will be poets rather than hard-bitten politicians,
economists and administrators, but with such vast issues at stake
for the future of Britain, for the future of all our countries,
and of Europe it will be a tragedy and a reproach if this historic
initiative is compelled to flounder in a mass of detail. We must
maintain the momentum.

This is not to say that there will not be major problems of
extreme difficulty. I am not going to outline them now. Rather is
this a matter for detailed and confidential discussion with the
Heads of Government whom we are meeting these few weeks. But I should
be less than frank if I did not at least refer to the problems created particularly
by the financial aspects of the Comunity’s agricultural policy,
by arrangements made, and appropriately made to secure fairness
and equity between the agricultural interests of the six countries concerned,
but arrangements which do not reflect – indeed clearly, they could
not reflect – the problem created by the entry of a major food-importing
nation such as Britain. For they would mean a financial contribution
which would fundamentally affect not only the balance so painfully
worked out over the past few years but also the balance of equity,
as well as the balance of payments, between Britain and other countries
who would seek to join – and the existing Six.

To outline this question, and to be aware of others, is not
designed to evoke any spirit of depression, still less of defeatism.
These problems are there to be overcome. I believe that they can
be overcome, given the same spirit of constructive ingenuity, tolerance,
understanding and give and take which have animated the relations of
the six Members in their dealings with one another from the outset.
For their solution is necessary not only for all of us here, but
for what we can all achieve in removing tension and creating a wider
unity – that wider unity of which you, Mr. President, spoke a few
minutes ago – embracing all Europe, East and West, and, looking
outwards still more widely, for what we can contribute to world
development, to the only war we seek, the war on want and hunger,
for what we can all contribute in our own distinctive way to solving
the problems of racial tension which more and more are embittering
relations between nation and nation, between man and man.

I believe still more strongly that they can be overcome if
all of us, while treading our way through the complicated economic
and political issues involved, can keep our eyes firmly fixed on
the vision that we have proclaimed.

I believe that, given that understanding, that spirit of give
and take, the creation of the right conditions, the task on which
we have embarked will enable us to carry the good will and support
of the vast majority of all of our peoples. And, above all, the
good will and support of the young people of Britain and of the
other countries represented here today.

Those of us who are entrusted with the responsibilities of
government have the challenging duty – and it is an exciting one
– of leading an impatient generation. It is a generation impatient
of the mumblings and bumblings and fumblings of what has too often
passed for statesmanship. And it will – this generation – as history
will – for this new generation will write the next chapters in that
history – it will condemn beyond any power of ours to defend or
excuse the failure to seize what so many of us can clearly see is
now a swirling, urgent tide in man’s affairs. If we do fail – I
want this to be understood – the fault will not lie at Britain’s
door. But the cost, and, above all, the cost of missed opportunities,
will fall, and in increasing measure, on every one of us.

I began by referring to the central themes of European history
a century ago and now. In the last century, the creation of the
nation States of Europe called on the citizens of those nations
to sacrifice their lives. In this century, the future of Europe,
and the world, has twice required a generation of men to give their
lives in the defence of freedom. The Europe of today, the Europe
it is in our power to fashion, with all that this means for a wider
world, calls for no such heroic sacrifices. The sacrifices which
are asked of this generation are sacrifices only of supposed short-term
interests, of short-term prejudices and stereotyped modes of thought.
I believe that this generation has decided on its answer.

Mr. Prime
Minister, thank you. There are eight of my colleagues in the Assembly
who have told me they want to put questions to the Prime Minister.
I shall call them in an order which will take account of the language
which they will use, of their nationality, and also of their seniority
in our Assembly. I call, first, the Senior Vice-President of the
Assembly, and I shall then call Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

I call Senator Montini.

Mr. MONTINI (Italy) (translation)

Mr. President, as a senior member and first Vice­ President
of our Assembly, I would like to thank the British Prime Minister,
Mr. Wilson, for having come to our Assembly to give us his Government's
point of view on a problem which is of the greatest interest to
the Council of Europe, namely, the place and role of Great Britain
in the context of European integration.

I would like to take this opportunity, Mr. President, of wishing
Mr. Wilson every success in his undertaking and on his tour of Europe.
Although Mr. Wilson dealt with this question in his speech, I would
nevertheless like to ask him whether Great Britain is in favour
of development at political, indeed at institutional and political
level, which might lead to a new and more substantial integration,
reaching beyond the present predominantly economic and executive
functions of existing bodies, including those of the States of the
Economic Community.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

I should like to thank
the Vice-President, Senator Montini, for what he has said and for
his good wishes.

In answer to his question, as I have made clear in what I
have said, we envisage the future development of Britain's relations
with and within Europe as being not only economic, not only confined
within the existing Community, but political as well.

As to the development of institutions and the relationships
between Members of the enlarged Community, this is a matter which
I am having the privilege of discussing with the Governments on
the tour which I have described. These matters were discussed, as
the Senator will be aware, very profitably and helpfully in Rome last
week.

It will be our intention to work in the letter and in the
spirit in institutions which may be developed by agreement among
the Members of the Community, including ourselves. Until we do become
Members, it would perhaps be wrong for me or my colleagues in Britain
to express any opinions about arguments which are or have been currently
going on between Members of the Six themselves. If we are in, we
shall play our full part in these problems.

Sir Alec DOUGLAS-HOME (United
Kingdom)

I often question the Prime Minister, but
seldom when I am overseas! I wonder whether he will permit me today
to make it clear that the Conservative members of the United Kingdom
delegation to this Assembly fully support the initiative which he
is taking, and that, therefore, the movement for British entry into
the European Community may now be seen against the background of broad
national unity in Britain. In particular, I wish him success in
the important discussions which he is about to undertake in Paris.

Mr Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

I should like to thank
Sir Alec Douglas-Home for what he has said, and to confirm completely what
he said on the question of the initiative announced in the House
of Commons by Her Majesty's Government, which did at that time receive,
and has subsequently received, the full support of the main political parties
in our House of Commons. I also thank him for the good wishes he
has expressed for our continuing tour.

Mr. RADIUS (France) (translation)

Mr. President, the Prime Minister mentioned just now the problem
Britain's accession would cause because she is a large importer
of foodstuffs. And he referred twice to the statement he made ten weeks
ago, on 10th November last year, in which he stressed the vital
interests of Britain and the Commonwealth.

On 4th May he was a little more precise. In a reply to the
Leader of the Liberal Party he said that the agricultural policy
of the Community would mean a levy of 65-70 % on imports of cereals
from the Commonwealth. The Government quite definitely could not
accept that, but if the agricultural policy were altered to make
the terms more acceptable, the position would be different.

In view of that statement, I would like to ask the Prime Minister
the following question: does he still feel the same today, and does
he regard some alteration in the common agricultural policy, to
decrease the levy on imported cereals, as vital to the interests
of Britain and the Commonwealth?

Mr Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

This is a matter of great
importance and of considerable complexity, which I might feel, as
we all might, could perhaps more profitably be discussed tomorrow
than today.

It is indeed a problem which has already led to quite fruitful
discussions in Rome, as I am sure it will in Paris, Brussels, The
Hague, Bonn and Luxembourg.

I have on a number of occasions, when questioned about this
problem of the levies, stated that if we look ahead to 1969, 1970
and beyond, it is difficult to make any precise calculation either
as to the effect on Britain's balance of payments or the cost of
the levy, or, indeed, as to the size of the levy, because I have
not met an agriculturist· who is certain whether world prices may
not rise during that period; nor, I suggest, is there finality about
what the Community prices may be in those years. These are matters,
I understand, which are left for further discussion.

This is a very important problem for us and a very important
problem for the Community, and particularly for more than one country
which is a major food importer rather than one concerned with food
exports.

In my speech a few minutes ago, I stressed particularly the
problems of the financial regulations with regard to this disposal
of the money taken in by Government under those levies. The adherence
of a majority food importer would, of course, throw out of balance
all the figuras which have been worked out during the past two years
– not, I gather, without considerable difficulty and discussion
and very late sitting and, of course, would increase beyond the
present target figure the total amount of money required for the
Special Fund.

Therefore, these matters would be necessarily, as is envisaged
by the terms of the Treaty itself, a matter for adjustment on the
entry of a new Member. I hope that, in these adjustments, we would
be able to solve these problems to our mutual advantage.

I would say to our friend -who is more than a friend, because
in a very special political sense he is our host as parliamentary
representative of the city in which we are meeting – that a very
deep and close study such as I am sure he has made of the whole
problem of cereals movements might suggest that some change in prices might
be very beneficial to his own country and perhaps his own constituency
and might lead to closer and warmer trade between Britain and France.
These problems are not necessarily capable of solution or interpretation
only in one direction.

Mr. STRUYE (Belgium) (translation)

Mr. President, I must ask the Prime Minister to excuse me
if my questions are lacking in discretion, but he knows Members
of Parliament are always inquisitive and sometimes indiscreet. This
is my first question: does the Prime Minister consider that the
difficulties he may meet with in his approaches -which we all hope
will succeed – are more likely to be economic or political?

My second question follows on from the one put by Mr. Radius
and concerns agricultural policy. Af ter many difficulties, the
Six succeeded in laying down the broad lines of a common agricultural
policy. The Prime Minister has told us about Britain's difficulties
and we all know what they are. Does he think these difficulties could
be overcome simply by very broad transitional measures and progressive
adaptation, which would not involve any modification of the principles
already adopted by the Six?

Here is my third question: the Six met with great difficulties
on the subject of the qualified majority in Luxembourg, almost exactly
a year ago, and overcame them. Without altering the Rome Treaty,
they succeeded in reaching a sort of gentlemen's agreement on a
pragmatic basis whereby in practice the qualified majority would
be hedged about with arrangements and guarantees which would render
it more acceptable to the various countries. Could the Prime Minister
tell us whether this might help Britain to accept what has already been
agreed on the subject of the qualified majority?

Fourth question: a great deal has been said about the former
Fouchet-Cattani Plan. Does the Prime Minister think that during
the months ahead this Plan might be the basis of a fresh effort
to launch the beginnings of a political union in Europe, and would
Britain be prepared to be associated with such endeavour?

Finally, my very last question: I think we all believe – we
have said so a thousand times in this Assembly – that the Europe
of tomorrow is inconceivable without Britain as a full Member, for
she is an integral part of Europe. But if, by some mischance, that
does not come about during the months to come, would the Prime Minister consider
as a substitute, in accordance with the other article at the end
of the Treaty, a Treaty of Association which might be the first
step towards future membership?

Mr Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

I will deal with those
five questions briefly. The first was to ask me whether I thought
that the difficulties about

Britain's entry were, principally, economic or political.
If Mr. Struye is referring to the difficulties on our side, I said
that there are certain problems on the economic side. I see no political
problems about entry. If, of course, he is asking me to forecast
what difficulties might arise on the side of the Six, this matter
should perhaps be lef t for a few weeks, while these explorations
continue – or perhaps it is a question on which he and his country might
be able to give a more accurate forecast than I would feel right
in trying to do now.

The second question related to agriculture. He asked me whether
I feel that the agricultural problems will require merely a period
of time – transitionary arrangements – or whether more fundamental
changes would have to be made in the rules. We are discussing this
already, as we continue our tour. So far, we have discussed it only
in one capital, Rome. The Foreign Secretary and I were more than
a little encouraged in our talks there to feel that some of the
difficulties which have been foreseen in agriculture might not be
so great as we thought, although, of course, there are problems
arising out of the financial regulations, as I said, which, in any
case, would require consequential amendment on the entry of any
new Member. The existing ones would have to be changed in so far
as they are on a percentage basis, if the number of participants
increases.

I do not believe that those problems are insoluble. I believe
that they are difficult and that, given the right good will, we
can solve them.

The third question was about the qualified majority and the
discussions at Luxembourg. We have followed with the greatest interest
the discussions in the Six over these problems during the past year
or two. We felt that it would have been wrong for the British Government
or the British Parliament to intervene while the discussions were
going on, because we were not directly concerned. I can imagine
that we would have been invited to mind our own business if we had
expressed opinions on one side or the other in these discussions.

If we become a Member, we shall, of course, play our part
in any future discussions. If we become a Member, at the point that
we do we will carry out the agreements reached by those who founded
the Community and have been working it since that time.

Perhaps, if I might express a further opinion here, I said
during my earlier speech that we have been concerned in our studies
not only to look at the wording of the Treaty, but also at the way
in which the Treaty has been working in practical terms. I said
that we have been encouraged by that. I would not exclude from the
area which has given encouragement the discussions, and the outcome
of those discussions, which took place at Luxembourg.

The fourth question concerned the political future of Europe.
For example, the questioner mentioned the Fouchet Plan, which, of
course, we have studied. Again, I think it would be wrong, since
these are matters of controversy within the Six, for me to express
this afternoon, off the cuff or in any other way, a view in favour
of one or other formulation; for the political unity of Europe,
on which very many European statesmen have spent a great deal of
time and thought, has so far been subject to different conclusions
by them.

If I am asked – as I was – whether, in a few months, I would
hope that we could reach agreement, whether on the Fouchet Plan
or on any other, again I must turn the questioner to those who have
been discussing those problems for the last ten years. In ten years,
so far, no agreement has been reached, which is unfortunate. It is
not for me, I think, from the outside, to say that in ten months
we could reach an agreement which has not been reached in ten years.

But we will do our level best with you to see that we obtain
a solution, because all of us are concerned about the future political
unity of Europe. Indeed, I should like to express the view, which,
I think, may not be acceptable to everyone here, that if we – as
I hope – are to embark on discussions about British entry into the Community,
then I hope that we can be associated with the discussions on political
unity at the earliest possible moment so that we can make our contribution
as from now instead of waiting until the economic and other discussions
are complete.

The fifth question concerned association. I am aware that
the idea has been mooted in some sections of the Press because of
the great difficulties which undoubtedly exist -and we would be
wrong to minimise them in our own minds or in our approach -about
entry under Article 237, perhaps the Treaty of Association under Article
238 would be appropriate. It is not for me to attempt to lay down
what form of involvement with the Community is appropriate for our
colleagues in EFTA. Each of them will judge for himself what is
the right association. It is not for me even to speculate about
what their final decisions will be.

Some, I know, will want full membership; some, I believe,
may well want associate membership. It is not for me to speculate
about that. But I think that if we were to conclude now, because
of the difficulties, that there was any future in the idea of Britain
joining as an associate Member – being loosely associated with something
in which, if the conditions are right, we shall be fully integrated
– then I believe that would be a very half-hearted and defeatist
solution.

Nor are we normally of a mind to join anything with which
we have a loose association and do not have any say in the way in
which it is run. No; that is perhaps a semi-escapist way of dealing
with the difficulties we face. I would rather we all faced up to
the difficulties and went straight for a solution of the problems
that we face.

THE PRESIDENT

My colleagues
will have noticed that I allowed Mr. Struye to put more than one
question. Mr. Struye is the Chairman of our Political Committee.
Of course, I would not only allow him but encourage him to do that
in that capacity. However, I hope that my colleagues will agree
that from now on they should put only one question.

Mr. Finn MOE (Norway)

First. I should like to join those of my colleagues who have
congratulated Mr. Wilson on his brilliant speech. The question I
wish to put is not of an economic nature, but it has, nevertheless,
an important bearing on the negotiations which we all hope will
lead to greater economic unity in Europe.

I have seen Press reports to the effect that the Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom accepts the idea of what has been called a
twin pillar system of Atlantic defence. Is that so?

Mr Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

I am always grateful for
any advice, comments, or questions from my old friend, Mr. Finn
Moe, and I thank him for what he has said. He has referred to a
phrase or concept which is very familiar, I think, in discussions
of these problems -the concept of the twin pillars on both sides
of the Atlantic. Indeed, I think that it is usually used not in
the context of Atlantic defence, but in connection with the broader
question of the Atlantic partnership. The idea of course is that
if that partnership is to be a real one it must be based on independence
as well as interdependence, on a basis that each side of the Atlantic
is capable of talking on equal terms to the other, which means strengthening
our own base.

In so far as that concept refers to building up Europe's economic
strength, technical ability and industry, then, as I said in my
speech, that is very much our idea. Our concept of Atlantic partnership
does not mean subservience or dependence on outside technology.
The phrase " twin pillars " has often been used. Most of our speakers
in the House of Commons during our debates have used it, as I have
myself. We must be careful, in using any of those analogies, that
we are not carried away by them. That is now an etablished cliché in these discussions. As
the greatest master of cliché in
the British House of Commons, I would be the last to deny anyone
his cliché, particularly since
I have used it myself; but we must be very careful about it.

If equality of strength by building up our own technological
strength is meant, I believe that that is a useful cliché for all of us to use.

Mr. VOS (Netherlands)

As you, Mr. President, have made a rule that only the Chairman
of the Political Committee can pose more than one question, but
not the Chairman of the Economic Committee, then I agree with your
rule.

I wish all success to Mr. Brown on his journey to all the
European capitals. He will visit The Hague only after our elections
have taken place.

In the European Parliament we are always faced with the question
of the right to control the financial considerations involved in
the agricultural policy. I should like to ask the Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom whether the question of the rights and powers
of Parliament with regard to the functioning of the Community, when
large sums of money are involved, will be the subject of his negotiations
with the other Prime Ministers and Heads of State he will be visiting
during the next month. Will the question of the rights and powers
of the European Parliament vis-à-vis the
Commission and vis-à-vis the
Government of the Community be on his agenda?

Mr Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

I have discussed those
problems often with Mr. Vos in committees in past years. It is a
pleasure to hear him again on that subject.

If I understood the question aright, he was referring, I think,
not to the control of national Parliaments, but to European parliamentary
control over the working both of the agricultural programme and
policy, and particularly over the financial aspects of that policy,
because of the traditions in each of our own countries of parliamentary
control over finance.

Mr. Vos asked me whether this is playing a part in our discussions
with Heads of Government of the six EEC countries. The answer is,
of course, that any question which any Head of Government wants
to put to Mr. George Brown and myself, we shall do our best to answer.
We for our part will stress the difficulties that need to be stressed,
and we shall also stress those favourable factors we see. We shall
also, as we have done in Rome, seek to learn from the principal
countries the practical working of the Community as a means of overcoming
the difficulties.

The future development of parliamentary control must be a
matter for the Six themselves. It is not at present a reality, and,
therefore, is not currently an issue. We should, as Members of the
European Community, if our negotiations lead to that membership,
play our full part with the others in discussing all these problems.
I think that it would be wrong for us now, not as Members, to go
faster and further than those who are. It would equally be wrong
to suggest if we become Members that we might lag behind them in
anything on which they agree.

THE PRESIDENT

I should
like to make it clear to Mr. Vos that in the opinion of the Bureau
all Committees are equal and all Committee Chairmen are equal. But
it was a fact that as Mr. Struye was putting a question in the opening
of the Political Debate I allowed him five questions.

I call Mr. Badini Confalonieri.

Mr. BADINI CONFALONIERI (Italy) (translation)

I shall put just one question to the Prime Minister.

He referred just now, in one of his replies, to his visit
to Rome last week. The visit to Rome was the first stage of his
European tour. There is a saying that “well begun is half done”.

Would the Prime Minister give us his impressions of that visit?

Mr Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

As I said when I left Rome
to the Press who were there, I felt that it had been a very good
start to our tour. We had, as we had expected and even more so -been
very warmly received by the Italian Government and had from them
their assurance of full support for what we had set before ourselves.
They were extremely helpful in giving us, out of their own rich
experience of the work of the Community, some impression of how
particular problems that they had have to face had been solved,
for example, in the field of regional development and policies,
which is a special problem for Italy and which is also a problem,
so far as parts of the United Kingdom are concerned, for Britain.

We had an extremely good start. I might say that at one point,
after an exchange of views on both sides, Mr. Fanfani put no fewer
than fifteen questions off the reel to me and I tried to give him,
with similar speed and crispness, fifteen answers. Whether he was
satisfied with them, I am sure you will hear in Rome.

Mr. DUNNE (Ireland)

During his very eloquent and inspiring speech the Prime Minister
referred to Celts, of whom I am one.

I should like to ask the Prime Minister this question. Would
he comment upon the prospects of Irish unity in an extended European
Economic Community?

Mr Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

It is not a new question
for me! I am happy to tell Mr. Dunne, if it is any comfort to him,
that I represent twice as many Irishmen in the British House of
Commons than he represents in the Dail! He was good enough not to
make this question more difficult for me by asking it in Irish,
so I shall not reciprocate by replying in “Liverpool scouse”, of
which I am sure he has knowledge!

The question is not one which is principally concerned with
the Treaty of Rome, or, indeed, any discussion under the Treaty
of Rome. It is of much older origin and in its way it raises problems
no less intransigent than those which Members of the Economic Community
have to face.

For myself, I think that many of us in the British Parliament
have been reasonably encouraged during the last year or two by the
improved relations within Ireland as a result of the meetings between
Mr. Lemass, when he was Taoiseach –
I hope that I have pronounced that right – and the Prime Minister
of Northern Ireland, Mr. O'Neill. I believe that they have both
shown great statesmanship in coming together at a time when such
action was likely to lead to criticism by constituents on each side
of the border.

I am happy to say that both Mr. Lynch, the new Taoiseach,
and Mr. Terence O'Neill, have been discussing this with me in Downing
Street during the past four or five weeks. I believe that the signature
of the Free Trade Treaty between Britain and the Republic of Ireland
last year will of itself help to bring a closer economic unity between
the two parts of Ireland, because this will mean that there will
be over a period of time complete free trade between the whole of
the British Isles, and the Border, which has been the scene of such
interesting historical development that I do not want to dwell on
it today, will now become open for trade between Northern and Southern
Ireland.

The main question, I think, Mr. President, is not one for
determination within the Treaty of Rome. If the Council of Europe
cannot solve the problem, I doubt whether the European Economic
Community unaided would be able to do so. In fact, I do not know
that any of us can solve it, except those who live in Ireland. It
is a problem for the people of Ireland. I know, just as my predecessors,
that no one would be happier than Great Britain if this problem
is solved by agreement within the Emerald Isle. I am sure that I
am speaking for everyone in expressing the hope that over the next
few years we shall see an intensification of the process of coming together
which has begun during the last three or four years.

THE PRESIDENT

I hope that
Mr. Dunne will be encouraged by the fact that the Prime Minister
referred not only to the Emerald Isle but, in anticipation of your
question, Mr. Dunne, is wearing a tie of Irish national colour.

I call Mr. Pounder.

Mr. POUNDER (United
Kingdom)

While regretting that Mr. Dunne should have
seen fit to use this occasion to engage in Irish nationalist propaganda,
may I ask the Prime Minister whether he would confirm that it remains the
policy of her Majesty's Government to abide by the 1949 Ireland
Act, whereby people of Northern Ireland will determine their own
constitutional destiny and maintain links with the United Kingdom
as long as they so wish?

Mr Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

I am not sure whether the
questions which are normally put to me in the House of Commons, and
which are answered with unfailing regularity, are a matter which
should take up the time of this gathering. But I confirm that the
answer I have given to some of Mr. Pounder's distinguished colleagues
from Northern Ireland in the House of Commons remains the answer.
That does not in any way detract from what I believe to be the real
duty of all those in Northern and Southern Ireland, without propaganda
and with a genuine desire to solve the problems, to get together
and solve the Irish problem so that we can all express our warm
blessing to them for solving it and so be free from having to answer
all these questions in the future.

THE PRESIDENT

I feel that
I must close this question-and-answer period at this point. There
are two members of our Assembly who have written up to me since
I have been sitting here, stating that they have questions, but
I regret that it is not possible, within the time, to put them.
However, I shall see that they get priority when speaking in the
debate.

Mr. Wilson, on behalf of the Assembly, I wish to thank you
very much indeed not only for coming here and for your speech, but
for answering the questions we have put to you. Thank you very much
indeed.